Epstein victims’ attorneys clarify settlement

Michele Dargan

Saturday

Sep 3, 2016 at 12:01 AMSep 3, 2016 at 6:31 PM

The two attorneys who settled a defamation lawsuit with law professor Alan Dershowitz on Friday say they didn’t drop the defamation case against Dershowitz "due to lack of factual evidence," according to a statement released Monday.

West Palm Beach Attorney Jack Scarola released the statement on behalf of attorneys Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell, who sued Dershowitz for defamation in January 2015. Dershowitz filed a defamation counterclaim.

Both sides agreed to drop their cases in Broward County Circuit Court on Friday. Edwards and Cassell "entered into a monetary settlement that resolved the defamation claims," but the amount remains confidential, according to their statement.

Edwards and Cassell represent underage victims of Palm Beach billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. One of those victims is Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who alleges Epstein kept her as a sex slave when she was a minor and made her have sex with his rich and powerful friends. In sworn statements, Giuffre alleged thatshe was made to have sex with Dershowitz at the behest of Epstein. Dershowitz vigorously denied those claims, saying he’s never met Giuffre.

> More on Palm Beach billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein case

Dershowitz then went on a media blitz, calling into question the two attorneys’ ethics for making Giuffe’s claims public when he insisted the allegations weren’t true. That led to the dueling lawsuits.

Following the settlement, Dershowitz released a statement by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, saying Freeh had supervised an independent investigation that "found no evidence to support the accusations of sexual misconduct against Professor Dershowitz. In fact, in several instances, the evidence directly contradicted the accusations made against him. In my opinion, the totality of the evidence found during the investigation refutes the allegations made against Professor Dershowitz."

Dershowitz issued his own statement saying he was pleased the litigation was over and that Edwards and Cassell acknowledged it was a mistake to have filed sexual misconduct accusations against him.

Assertions that Dershowitz has made suggesting that he has prevailed "and that the terms of the settlement agreement exonerate him of any wrongdoing … are misleading at best," according to Edwards and Cassell’s statement.

"Ms. Giuffre reaffirms her allegations, and the withdrawal of the referenced filings is not intended to be, and should not be construed as being, an acknowledgement by Edwards and Cassell that the allegations made by Ms. Giuffre were mistaken," court papers show.

Edwards and Cassell acknowledge that the public filing of Giuffre’s claims about Dershowitz in their ongoing federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act lawsuit "became a major distraction" from the merits of the case and turned out to be "a tactical mistake," according to court papers.

The three parties issued a joint statement Friday, saying Edwards and Cassell maintain that "they filed their clients allegations in good faith and performed the necessary due diligence to do so and have produced documents detailing those efforts. Dershowitz completely denies any such misconduct, while not disputing (Giuffre’s) statements that the underlying alleged misconduct may have occurred with someone else. Dershowitz has produced travel and other records for the relevant times which he relies on to establish that he could not have been present when the alleged misconduct occurred. He has also produced other evidence that he relies upon to refute the credibility of the allegations against him."